When my son and his fiance’ visited me several weeks ago, he wanted to see some of the hotels designed by John C. Portman, Jr. So when Hurricane Sandy was wreaking havoc in the Northeast and her back winds were blowing hard and cold in Atlanta, we walked downtown. We saw four of the buildings he designed, and the others will be featured in subsequent posts. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things I like about living in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward is the street art. Much of it is from the Living Walls project, now in its third year. But it comes from a variety of sources, and some of it is even impromptu – not created as art, but as a method of communication. However, I am attracted to the objet truve’ types of “found art” – the scuzzy, torn, dilapidated, mutilated, and discombobulated (I just had to use that word) stuff that you find in cities. Read the rest of this entry »

To honor the August 28, 1963 March on Washington and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, two civil rights icons spoke on the civil rights movement Tuesday in the state capitol in Atlanta.

The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery

The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, who helped Dr. King establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and U. S. Congressman John Lewis, former head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (1963-66), spoke about that day 49 years ago when they weren’t sure who would show up for the March, and then were overwhelmed by the enormous crowds. Read the rest of this entry »

It isn’t much of a mountain, but it is unique. Arabia Mountain is an outcrop of granite or granite-like rock a few miles southeast of Atlanta – a smaller version of Stone Mountain. This monadnock (an isolated hill rising conspicuously from the surrounding land) had been quarried at one time, but is now preserved as a park with a bicycle trail leading to sister-monadnock Panola Mountain State Park. Read the rest of this entry »

Halloween Pennant female, Panola Mt. Georgia. This is one of those dragonflies whose wings can assume various angles independently of each other.

I certainly spent more time photographing dragonflies this week than I did birds, so I guess I’m getting a new hobby.

Despite the summer heat, I spent all day last Monday walking in the sun at Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area and Panola Mountain State Park near Atlanta. There weren’t too many birds, at least none that would admit to it. But the dragonflies…. An odonate lover (the insect order encompassing dragonflies and damselflies) would have been in bug heaven. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was sixteen, I was mad in love with Glen Campbell. I joined his fan club. I did pastel drawings of him and mailed them. I was jealous of his wife Billie. My whole family watched his Goodtime Hour every Sunday (my mother liked him, too).

So now Glen, my love of forty years, is fading away. He’s going not just gracefully, but with joie de vivre, saying his concert farewells on the Goodbye Tour. I saw him last night in Atlanta’s Chastain Park Amphitheatre, with headliner Kenny Rogers. The turnout was modest, but enthusiastic for both singers. I think we all knew that Glen Campbell has Alzheimer’s disease, which means he forgets lyrics and acts kinda goofy. But I remembered the words, plucked from the hard drive in the brain that remembers every song you ever sang when you were 18, but can’t retain information inputted an hour earlier. Read the rest of this entry »

“You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, “Eat, Pray, Love”

Large crepe myrtle on Auburn Avenue

That’s another gem of E-P-L wisdom that works well with today’s blog. It reminds me of my favorite philosophy from Alice Walker: “It pisses God off if you walk past the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice.”

It’s hard to not notice a crepe myrtle in full bloom. And that’s why it is my favorite tree.

“ So this is what my life has been reduced to – a 12 by 12 room.” – paraphrased

I’ve been gone awhile from blogging, I know. It’s not for lack of subjects, as I’ve had plenty to say and show you. But darn it, life just takes a lot of time and there’s not always enough of it leftover to blog about it. So here’s the short version, based on the above quote in the movie “Eat, Pray, Love,” where Julia Roberts looks into her box-filled storage unit before embarking on her overseas journey to self-discovery. (Funny, but I can’t find that quote among the hundreds others have cited online…) Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I guess they’re all beasts, but some are awfully beautiful. This is part 3 of the critters at Zoo Atlanta.

Orangutan

Orangutans are another endangered large mammal, whose name in Malay, “orangutan hutan” means “person of the forest.”

From an Associated Press article: There are more than 200 orangutans at 55 zoos across the United States. The animals hail from Sumatra and Borneo in Indonesia, where deforestation and population growth has caused the Sumatran orangutan numbers to plummet to just 4,500. The article, published in the Huffington Post, describes Zoo Atlanta’s Great Ape Heart Project, which they are expanding to include orangutans. Read the rest of this entry »